Trained Rats Map Minefields With GPS 103
An anonymous reader writes "Believe it or not, but the Department of Defense is paying psychologists to train rats to find mines and circle around them. By attaching little GPS backpacks and supplying a laptop with software that looks for the 'circling around' signature, the DOD hopes its project will allow the release of platoons of rats near suspected minefields so that the laptop software creates a detailed map of where all the mines are located automatically. Not sure if they plan on picking up the rats afterward, but they do assure us that the rats are too lightweight to set off the mines!"
Don't need the DoD, already being done (Score:5, Informative)
It's not crazy, and it's already being done, by organization like HeroRATs - http://www.apopo.org/cms.php?cmsid=107 [apopo.org]. They train African giant pouched rats to detect mines. They're also using them to detect tuberculosis, in human spit. Yuck, but way cool.
Nothing New (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Those poor rats (Score:4, Informative)
(this is the troll post that guarantees me a ticket to hell, isn't it?)
Re:Boom (Score:3, Informative)
On the menu - I've never really had one: go to the store, buy whatever's cheap, and do something creative with it. A good cookbook helps for inspiration - I'd recommend Joy of Cooking, the older the better. It's a rare off-the-wall ingredient that it doesn't have at least a handful of different recipes for, and more common stuff typically includes a "strategic overview" discussion of the common cooking techniques and the pros and cons thereof.
General thoughts: For non-perishable stuff wait until it's on sale and buy as much as you can afford - you can build up a well-stocked larder for surprisingly little cash, and having at least several weeks worth of food on-hand makes you immune to transient price hikes and income shortages, as well as meaning you always have a wide variety of ingredients on-hand to play with. Buy in bulk. A styrofoam cooler in the freezer will let you store meat and vegetables indefinitely with very little freezer burn - just don't open it more than a few times a week and be sure to pre-freeze food before adding it - it's the temperature fluctuations that do most of the damage. 10lb of whole-wheat flour, a little sugar, and a jar of yeast is a lot cheaper, healthier, and more filling than anything in the bread aisle, you can find a bread machine at most thrift stores for $10 if you keep your eyes open for a while, which will not only save you a lot of work, but also let you put it on a timer and wake up to the smell of fresh-baked bread in the morning, a real treat. Keep sodas, refined sugars, and white flour intake to a minimum (along with other simple carbohydrates) - insulin shock makes you hungry again long before your body actually needs more food. Same goes for frozen dinners, with the added fact that they're terribly unhealthy. Green cabbage is cheap, filling, and goes great in stews, sandwichs, salads, etc. Keep a bottomless soup-pot in the refrigerator - restock it with all the leftover bits and pieces (meat trimmings, vegetable greens, diced stems, you name it) you've save from other meals, there's rarely cause to throw anything edible away. Be sure to save all your bones to temporarily add while simmering as well, lots of good flavor and nutrients in those, especially if the marrow is accessible, just try to avoid shards (especially common on factory-butchered chicken), you can't fish those out with the rest, and they're no fun to encounter when enjoying a delicious bowl of soup and some good coarse bread. Oh, and build up a good stock of spices and learn to use them. They make the difference between edible and delicious, and a huge variety are available in the $1-$2 range for a jar which may well last a year or more.
I was brought up that way and even though I've got plenty of income these days I'm still hard-pressed to spend more than $150 a month to feed myself without really indulging on a regular basis.